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The Museum of the Jewellery Quarter has just been voted the third best visitor attraction in Europe by TripAdvisor, after Rome’s Pantheon and the National Gallery in London.

The Jewellery Quarter

But this part of Birmingham is much more than a precious reminder of the city’s hay days following the Industrial Revolution.

Although many of the buildings which once housed factories now serve as bars, shops or plush apartments, many jewellery businesses still thrive, producing specific high end items for clients who rely on their rare skills and top quality products.

Paying attention to detail

A manufacturing gem

From bespoke designer jewellery to car parts, many factories within this sometimes forgotten corner of the city continue a manufacturing tradition that gives the Jewellery Quarter the highest concentration of dedicated Jewellers in Europe. One third of all jewellery produced in the UK comes from the district.

Thomas Fattorini is one example of a business thriving here despite the flight from Britain of the manufacturing industries. It was founded in Yorkshire in 1827 by Italian immigrant Antonio Fattorini.

A work in progress

He later moved his small jewellery and watch-making business to Birmingham in search of skilled labour and a chance to make medals for the Football Association and other sport clubs. It fell to the firm to cast the third FA Cup trophy in 1911, which was used until 1992.

Changing with the times

Today the business is still family owned and has expanded its range of products to include car badges, trophies, and ceremonial regalia for mayors, council officials and many other organisations across the world.

Polishing

The firm specialises in enamelling- a decorative technique which dates back to Ancient Egypt.

Some of Fattorini’s staff have been working for the company all of their working lives; young apprentices are taken on to learn the trade from the experts around them. The work involved is highly skilled, and a simple looking piece such as a car logo can go through six or seven people’s hands from start to finish, before it is ready to send off to the client.

Gary Speakman

Craftsmanship

This kind of production may sound outdated in an age of computer aided design and manufacturing, where massive production lines can produce thousands of items at a time at low cost, with little need for highly skilled labour.

Manager of the firm, Gary Speakman does not see this as a problem: β€œYou hear a lot of doom and gloom about manufacturing, but I think if you concentrate on high quality products there’s definitely a market there because you’re doing something very specific that few people can do to a high standard, instead of stamping out a thousand things at a time that are exactly the same.”

Applying enamel to a base metal plate

A working history

Fattorini’s factory is a listed building, mostly preserved in its original state. The large windows between workshops and offices make for a light atmosphere, and the high ceilings and wood lined staircases bear witness to the building's years of use.

In the enamelling shop on the first floor, Jordan Morris is working on manifest plates for a luxury car firm, who are among Fattorini’s regular clients.

Jordan takes the plates for firing

The small base metal plate is dipped in acid, rinsed, fired, polished, scrubbed, layered with enamel, fired again, heated, cooled and sanded; in fact it goes through more meticulous processes than anyone uninitiated in the craft could count. After three years of training on the shop floor, Jordan says now she feels she just about has the hang of it.

A job for life

Jordan is one of the few younger people on the Fattorini team. She joined as a trainee after taking a course in enamelling in the Jewellery Quarter. Although she plans to retrain as a teacher, she loves her work, and feels proud to have learnt such a specific trade, in a place as historically important as this.

This wire maker is about 100 years old

However, most of the silversmiths, enamellers and polishers who work alongside her have been here for much longer, β€œsome for 40 years, man and boy,” as Gary Speakman points out. Their skills were learnt in the days when a job was for life, and the Birmingham jewellery trade was much livelier than it is now.

In another workroom, Richard Haynes points out a machine over 100 years old, which is still used to make wire today. β€œIt does the job just like these new machines you can get, so why use anything else?” This is reflected across the workshops, where well worn work benches and machinery are intermingled with more modern devices.

Enamel plates

A daily challenge

Rising property prices, competition from overseas manufacturers and even lack of parking space in the Jewellery Quarter mean that businesses in the area are up against a daily challenge to keep their heads above water.

Long established firms like Fattorini, however, have found their niche and continue using their expertise to supply a specific market, nurturing skilled craftsmanship and a respect for uniqueness that has long left many areas of UK manufacturing.

The Jewellery Quarter therefore, is much more than a blast from the past. It's well worth a visit as it changes and grows with the times and it’s somewhere of which Birmingham can be proud.